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Saturday 18 July 2009

Another “sudden death” in police custody?! The case of R. Gunasegaran

by Nathaniel Tan

While we are still reeling over Teo, there has been another death in custody, via Susan:

A suspected drug addict collapsed while having his finger prints recorded at the Narcotics Division of the Sentul Police District Headquarters here today, and died when being rushed to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Sentul police chief ACP Zakaria Pagan said.

He said R. Gunasegaran, 31, collapsed between 6.45pm and 7pm, and was pronounced dead at 7.40pm at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

A police officer tried to administer first aid but Gunasegaran did not respond, he said.

“After the effort failed, he was sent to Kuala Lumpur Hospital but was pronounced dead upon arrival by a medical officer. We believe he died while on the way to the hospital,” he told reporters at his office, here.

Zakaria said a post-mortem revealed that death was caused by drug intoxication, and the case was classified as sudden death.

“No force was applied on him or on any of the other detainees. They were undergoing a standard interrogation process,” he said.

Zakaria said the inspection by the medical officer at the hospital found no injury on the body of Gunasegaran and that this was confirmed by a magistrate.

Here we face the exact same problems as we do in Teo’s case.

As established earlier, “standard interrogation process” tends to involve massive amounts of abuse.

Secondly, in the aftermath of A. “died from drinking water” Kugan, who in the public trusts these anonymous government “medical officers?”

Once again, I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt - maybe Gunasegaran did die from a drug overdose. But in this atmosphere of such doubt, such lack of transparency, and most of all: from a history of abuse, I cannot help but still harbour suspicions.

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